AIA President Elizabeth Bartman gives us an exclusive preview of the upcoming Presidential Plenary Session at this year’s Annual Meeting.

“I am very excited to preside over this panel on the ancient city.

This is the second of the three presidential panels that I will be organizing during my 3-year term, all devoted to major themes of archaeological research. What's especially provocative is that the panel will feature a mix of Old and New World archaeologists, including several who work in Southeast Asia and North America, areas rarely covered in our Annual Meeting. Miriam Stark of the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa leads off the session by posing fundamental questions about how we define cities and the nature of the evidence we use to understand them--early cities in Cambodia serve as the laboratory for her investigations. Nicola Terrenato of Michigan seeks to explain the rise of Rome by discerning patterns in the social, economic, and architectural activity in central Latium over centuries. James Kus of Fresno looks at the relationship between city and hinterland in pre-Inca Peru. Timothy Pauketat of Illinois links Cahokia's development to religious change; religion and ceremony also motivate urban development in Minoan Crete, the subject of Jan Driessen of Louvain's paper.

Touching upon architecture; communication and transport networks; the relationship between city and hinterland; the role of aristocratic elite and other social groups; ritual and ceremony, these papers cover a range of complex issues that lie at the core of our concepts of urbanism.”

Join President Elizabeth Bartman and culinary expert Maureen Fant on the upcoming AIA Tour, "Taste of Ancient Rome". This custom-designed tour will explore the fabulous sites and flavors of Rome in style.

2017 AM Resources

Annual Meeting Hotels

WARNING!

NOTICE: AIA and SCS members have received telephone calls and e-mails from individuals representing companies offering to make hotel reservations for attendees. These individuals are operating without the consent of either Society and are fraudulently representing themselves as AIA/SCS, the Sheraton Centre Hotel, the Hilton Hotel, or a housing service hired to process reservations for the joint annual meeting. They are not authorized in any way by the Societies to handle annual meeting hotel reservations and have no special access to our discounted group block.

No one at AIA, SCS, or the Sheraton or Hilton will ever call you via telephone asking you to book a hotel room, and you will not receive a solicitation via email from any of our affiliated hotels. The only official hotels for the 2017 conference are the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel (123 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5H 2M9, Canada) and Hilton Toronto (145 Richmond St W, Toronto, ON M5H 2L2, Canada). Our discounted rate at both properties is $159 CAD. Any offers from other hotels and/or travel agencies are not endorsed by AIA or SCS. We strongly urge attendees to use and book through the official housing web link on the AIA and SCS (https://classicalstudies.org) web sites. The Societies would like to hear from any member who has been approached in this way. Please write to AIA at 2017annualmeeting@aia.bu.edu.

Why is it important to book at our official Annual Meeting Hotels?
The AIA and SCS are proud to have produced the Annual Meeting for our professional members for the past 117 years. Financially, we are able to do this by reserving a large block of rooms with a hotel. In exchange, these hotels offer our attendees the guaranteed lowest group rate at the hotel and provide us with complimentary meeting space to hold the meeting. But if we are unable to meet our guaranteed minimum number of registered guests, then the AIA and SCS will have to pay for the unused rooms as well as room rental for the meeting space, which can amount to a severe financial penalty. We request your support by booking within our reserved blocks and helping us continue to produce this meeting for the next 100 years. We thank you for your support.